Poetry is what gets lost in translation-Robert Frost

March 17, 2009

Sanshiro Sugata Part II

Sanshiro Sugata Part II is probably one of Akira Kurosawa’s biggest failures. It was made due to the success of the previous film, but it may have been rushed because of the fire bombing of Tokyo. So it makes me wonder where they got the American actors for the fight scenes between the boxer and Japanese martial artists. It is a very formulaic film: Japan (good) v. USA (bad). It is a propaganda picture, it is apparent that Kurosawa phoned this one in.

Comments

interesting. i was just looking up clips of Sanshiro Sugata on YouTube the other day (i was looking for a japanese judo film from the mid 1970's about the "founder of judo" which i saw in Manhattan as a little kid, but could not find it; i thought it might be Sanshiro Sugata, but probably not).

i don't know, man. i don't get Kurosawa. i am probably just too ignorant, but i don't see why Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Ran, etc. are considered so brilliant. probably needs an education.

Ken you really need to re-watch those films on Criterion DVD series, which usually provide commentary by film critics who explain how his camera compositions were so ahead of his time and influenced later film makers like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorcese, Francis ford Coppola,etc..

Furthermore, a lot of his older films are morality tales about how we should live our lives in service to humanity, in the vein of "we are all connected" / "no man is an island" philosophy of life. I think there's a lot to admire in his body of work.